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the everyman memoirs

The Office Christmas Cards

Friday, 21 December 2012

This is the first year since working at my company that I've been in the sales department. It's been an immensely satisfying year, as I've loved building relationships with my customers. And I've been looking forward to the holiday season in particular, as I knew it would involve the company springing for some holiday goodies I could send my customers' way. Imagine my horror when our Marketing Communications department sent out an email with instructions on how we could send holiday e-cards to all our customers.

I'm sorry. I think I just hallucinated.

E-cards? We're a Fortune 500 company touting our stellar customer service and we can't be bothered to send our customers real, handwritten cards of appreciation for their business? I'll have you know that I deleted the MarComm email and proceeded to write out real cards to send with each box of goodies. I thanked them each for their business, told them how much I'm looking forward to working with them next year, and included a funny little aside based on our interactions this year that I hoped would give them a laugh.

And it worked like a charm. Even one of my more difficult customers who I've never been able to get anywhere with was in hysterics over how funny my little aside was. And that is the power of words. The power of writing. The power of tailoring your remarks rather than sending out a mass message. In a society where these kinds of gestures (and writing by hand in general) are less and less common, I hope people will come around, get back to basics, and realize that not everything is better in web form. E-cards, ppppsssshhh. Try again next year, MarComm.